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Mozilla Launches Fennec Alpha 2 – Is This the Safari Killer?

Posted 12/28/08 at 11:03:17 PM  by Justin Kerr

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Outside of mobile Safari, and perhaps to a lesser extent Opera Mini, the mobile browser experience can be somewhat unsatisfying. Poor page rendering, or completely unusable interfaces seem to plague the mobile experience. That’s where Mozilla has seen an opportunity to expand its browser platform, and a market that is still relatively untapped. With the launch of Fennec Alpha 2, Mozilla is one step closer to its goal of a mobile Firefox. Alpha 2 seems to address many of the performance issues that hindered the previous version, and these complaints were clearly acknowledged in a blog posting by Mozilla’s Mark Finkle.

 “While we focused much of the previous alpha on getting the user experience how we wanted, we’ve spent much of the time since focused on improving performance.  We’ve made major strides improving startup performance, panning and zooming performance, and responsiveness while pages are loading.”

My somewhat unscientific testing seems to backup these claims and performance has defiantly improved. Currently support is limited to Nokia's Maemo based N800 and N810, but compatibility with Windows Mobile and Symbian is apparently well underway. These platforms could defiantly use a bit more choice when it comes to browsers, and many are hoping it will finally give the power enjoyed by mobile Safari users to those who prefer non Apple hardware.

Do you think Fennec has what it takes?

COMMENTS:6
TAGS: mobile, iphone, Browsers, Mozilla, consumer electronics, Safari, Symbian, opera mini, fennec, windows moble
COMMENTS
avatarUsed it -- like it but...

Submitted by etsugua on Mon, 12/29/2008 - 12:12pm

...but it still needs work (guess that's why it's an alpha and not a beta).

 

The design concept here is to have as little clutter as possible on the
screen to maximize the web content.  The rendering performace appears to be on par
with the existing browser on the N800 (which is honestly the best I've seen for hand-held devices IMHO).  But this one supports extensions!

The Nokia 8x0 platform is an easy choice to use as a test platform for Fennec since it is practically a linux computer anyways, has a higher-res 800x480 screen, and it already uses a Mozilla browser (part of Maemo OS2008) but the N800 lacks the implementation of a good graphical processor so some of the cool features of Fennec, such as finger-scrolling the web page to the side a-la ipod Touch to view your bookmarks and other options, lag badly and feel awkward.

 I'm looking forward to inevitably seeing this browser on a more capable device with better finger-scrolling support but so far it looks really promising.

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avatarBerry goodness

Submitted by Caboose on Mon, 12/29/2008 - 11:06am

 I'm surprised that they haven't developed an Alpha build for Blackberries yet. A lot of business users, use Blackberries, and out of those, I do know that a number of people use the browser heavily, so having a good browser would be something that would be greatly appreciated.

 

-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-

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avatar"performance has defiantly

Submitted by DreadedOne509 on Mon, 12/29/2008 - 5:37am

"performance has defiantly improved"  Interesting choice of words that I can assume is targetted at the 'other' mobile browsers?  :)

 

"Thought's of Dread"

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avatarany chance it will come out

Submitted by Brett Schealler on Mon, 12/29/2008 - 4:26am

any chance it will come out for blackberrys?

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avatarMozila Continues To Grow

Submitted by Caskey.100 on Sun, 12/28/2008 - 10:44pm

It;s only a matter of time until Firefox starts to gain a good market control within the mobile browser. If it is as good as the regualar browser, then it is sure to be a great hit. Watch out Apple.

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avatarAny chance I will find this

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 12/28/2008 - 11:55pm

Any chance I will find this in the Android Market for the Android G1 T-Mobile phone?

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